by Eric Weiss
Sometimes you just don’t know where to start.
It’s true of many an RPG campaign, and it’s true of The Story Engine's prompt system with millions, billions, and trillions of possibilities. There are 3 core decks, 21 expansions, and 12 boosters under the Story Engine umbrella. How do you know which one is best for your group or for the D&D player you want to shop for?
Thankfully, you don’t need to start from scratch. We’ve put together a handy gift guide to help find the Story Engine set that makes sense for different kinds of DMs and D&D players.
For the DM who loves creating settings: Deck of Worlds
🥇 Featured in Forbes Magazine
🏆 Recommended as a top gift for Dungeon Masters by Forbes
You’ll want to grab Deck of Worlds. Our second core deck is all about location, location, location, insofar as it will help you create locations with distinct cultures, wildlife, and environmental features. Each place also comes with a conflict that can provide a jumping-off point for your next adventure!
For the DM who wants to homebrew EVERYTHING: Lore Master's Deck
Our new Lore Master’s Deck is a powerhouse for creating webs of lore for you, and you can use to homebrew just about anything for your game: NPCs, factions, historical events, interesting locations, powerful items, unique crafting materials, creatures, and more. Not only that, but it connects those lore elements together in a story web.
It’s the ultimate tool for creating immersive lore that serves as a backdrop for any story you want to tell, and filling your homebrew notes with ideas for new monsters, gear, encounters, and more.
For the DM who wants to design cool magic items: Unique Items Expansion
The Unique Items Expansion for The Story Engine is your new best friend. This 60-card set is designed specifically to help you create magic items, and it does just that by providing an endless supply of powerful (and sometimes hilarious) gear.
For the DM who wants the best value for money: Dungeon Master Essentials Bundle
This worldbuilding and lore-crafting bundle gives you everything you need to create unforgettable homebrew campaigns—without hours of prep or endless scrolling through sourcebooks.
Whether you’re sketching out a brand-new realm, dreaming up plot hooks on the fly, or fleshing out the monsters, factions, gods, and magic items your players will swear you planned months ago, these decks help you build rich, reactive worlds in minutes.
For the player (or DM) who wants to create deeper characters: The Story Engine Deck
🥇 Featured in Forbes Magazine
We recommend the original Story Engine Deck and the Backstories Expansion.
The core deck is great for NPCs and player characters alike, since it ensures that each character has a concrete motivation and a storyline with built-in dramatic tension. The Backstories Expansion takes things one step further (or maybe one step backward) by introducing an important detail from a character’s past that can affect the way their story unfolds in the future.
Together, the two decks ensure that every character has a personality beyond ‘shopkeeper’ or ‘guard,’ and create more dynamic role-playing situations throughout the campaign.
For the DM who wants more interesting quests: Adventure Prompts Expansion
Check out the Adventure Prompts Expansion for Deck of Worlds. From fetch quests to political boondoggles, this set can be combined with The Story Engine and Deck of Worlds to launch compelling quests that are fully integrated with your setting and your characters.
For the DM who wants to be ready to handle anything: Ultimate Dungeon Master Bundle
Meet the ultimate toolkit for homebrew Dungeon Masters. Build richer worlds, deeper stories, and more reactive campaigns—while actually cutting down on prep time.
This bundle brings together every major deck system we’ve created, giving you an entire ecosystem of prompts that generate ideas for adventures, characters, locations, lore, cultures, magic items, and more.
Whether you’re a meticulous campaign architect or a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants improviser, these cards help you spin up fresh, interconnected ideas at a moment’s notice.
This bundle contains most of the expansions highlighted here, and some other DM favs.
For the player or DM who really likes [insert genre here]: Genre Expansions and Boosters
Our genre expansions and boosters have just what you’re looking for. The Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror Expansions for The Story Engine and Deck of Worlds all contain prompts geared toward their respective genres, while our 12 Story Engine Boosters explore smaller sub-genres like Cyberpunk or Eldritch Horror. You can also explore specific landscapes like deserts and coastlines with our Deck of Worlds cartography set.
Expect the fantasy expansion, most of these expansions do NOT come with the Dungeon Master bundles.
These expansions can help focus your storytelling if you know you want to work in a given area, or you can mix and match the different genres to create something totally unique!
For the DM who wants to bring their world to life: Culture Keyholes Expansion + Lore Fragments Expansion
Our Culture Keyholes and Lore Fragments Expansions hold the keys to a more immersive setting. The former helps you add little details like food, customs, and language that will make your world feel more authentic. Lore Fragments, on the other hand, will help you create songs, art, and other materials that belong in the setting you’ve created.
Together, they can take you beneath the surface to create settings and plot points that will really stick in your players’ minds.
For the DM who wants it all: All-Trilogy Bundle
Choosing is hard and game night is the most important night of the week, so we've grouped together everything into our most universally popular bundle at 25% off: the All-Trilogy Bundle. It contains all 3 main decks and every expansion and booster printed to date.
The biggest upgrade from Dungeon Master bundles is that it contains additional expansions and boosters focused or storytelling and worldbuilding in a variety of genres.
You also can't go wrong with one of our other bundles. Bundles get you a great deal on the cards themselves. We offer free shipping in the US, the UK, the EU, Canada, and Australia on orders above the shipping threshold! See our shipping page for the latest details.
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Between our three systems, we’re confident that there’s a deck for every DM (and every kind of player).
Visit our website to learn more about each deck, or head to our YouTube channel to see them in action if you still need help making a decision!